I surprise myself sometimes with how varied my TV tastes are. I can go from horror to sci-fi, straight into drama and romance within the blink of an eye. It all comes down to the PTC core principle for anything I watch: Is it enjoyable?
So when I tuned into Peacock’s The Five Star Weekend S1E1: “Friday: Arrivals,” I wasn’t that surprised by how quickly I fell into this somewhat light and breezy show. Serious, yes, but not Fringe or 12 Monkeys serious, where sometimes you have to put your brain into overdrive.
Everything’s Not Okay
Jennifer Garner plays Hollis Shaw, a food influencer grappling with the unexpected loss of her husband who eventually invites a group of old and new friends to her Nantucket summer home for a girls’ weekend.
Losing someone as unexpectedly as Hollis did isn’t a fun experience. Opening the door to find cops on your doorstep telling you your husband died in a horrific car crash is something nobody should have to experience. A loss like that turns your whole world upside down.
I know from experience how difficult it is to move on and get on with your life. Lots of people think it shouldn’t take as long as it does to finally get yourself together, but six months, like in Hollis’s case, is the blink of an eye. You can even convince yourself months later that you’re fine when you’re really not.
Hollis has a successful catering business, recently wrote a cookbook, and is being featured on the Today show when a question about about onions causes her to break down. You can’t control it. It’s uncomfortable for everyone, but there’s a lot of hurt and grief buried behind that smile and her determination to act like everything is perfectly fine.
Now, when I first saw Jennifer Garner standing in front of the Today show counter, I couldn’t help but think: WTF. Doesn’t she have a cooking show on YouTube in real life?
Why yes, she does.
So it’s kind of corny, but also a pretty cool bit of casting. Garner’s real-life YouTube series is even called Pretend Cooking Show, which is hilarious considering she’s now pretending to host a cooking show as Hollis.
I’m also reminded of the Hannah Swensen Mysteries on Hallmark+ because of how meticulous Hollis is about perfecting her goodies. Of course, Hollis isn’t baking cookies to bribe cops while solving murders she has no business sticking her nose into.
Oh, I know what you’re probably thinking: How the hell did this woman connect Hannah Banana to a grieving food influencer on Nantucket who isn’t solving murders?
Who the hell knows? That’s just how my brain works.
The question you should really be asking is why the hell I’m watching cheesy Hallmark mysteries in the first place. You can blame Lori Loughlin and Garage Sale Mysteries for that one.
From “Pretend Cooking” to Nantucket Grief
But back to Hollis.
After her breakdown, one of the producers tells Hollis about her mother’s friend who experienced a similar loss and invited friends from different chapters of her life to spend a weekend together as a way to help her through her grief.
In a short time, Hollis does exactly that.
Even before we get to Nantucket, we’re introduced to the women she’s going to invite, and it’s a whole slate of characters I wouldn’t mind sitting down with for a drink, a few laughs and maybe a few secrets.
My favorites are Brooke (D’Arcy Carden) and Tatum (Chloë Sevigny), who both seem like people I’d make lifelong friends with. And I love Sevigny in almost everything she does because she’s just got that way about her.
There’s also Dru-Ann (Regina Hall) and Gigi (Gemma Chan).
I also like how the show introduces everyone. Each woman gets a small title card with her name, but it doesn’t jar you out of the story like some shows do with their character introductions. Here, it all flows naturally.
When Hollis’ daughter Caroline (Harlow Jane), who’s away at college, initially rejects her invitation to Nantucket, Hollis decides to take the producer’s advice and invite the other women instead. It’s hard for Hollis, but she also understands that Caroline is grieving, too.
Still, it cuts. During one of the most difficult times in your life, the person you’d probably want beside you most is the person you love more than life itself: your kid.
The Facade of the Nantucket Perfect
Hollis gets hyped about the weekend and kicks into full Martha Stewart mode, working her ass off to make everything perfect.
There’s something ironic about that considering what she’s going through, but it’s also part of the point. All those MY LIFE IS GRAND! Facebook posts you see from friends might be nothing more than a facade hiding whatever is actually happening behind closed doors.
That’s Hollis.
She’s using the food, the beautiful Nantucket house and her perfect weekend to cover up the pain underneath.
But she’s not the only one whose life looks better from the outside.
Dru-Ann and Gigi are successful career women. Brooke is a housewife living in a gorgeous home who keeps Amazon in business, but she also has a controlling husband making her life miserable, even if she, too, puts on a happy face. She’s one of those people who talks too fast, says weird things and starts showing you pictures on her phone that nobody asked to see.
Tatum is the oddball because she doesn’t live like the others. She’s solidly middle-class and comes with plenty of attitude. But she’s also known Hollis the longest. They grew up together, even though they haven’t spoken in forever.
Even Tatum’s husband thinks it’s nuts when he sees Hollis’s fancy invitation. Doesn’t matter, though. She’s still going.
Later, we discover there’s some bad blood between Tatum and Dru-Ann, which immediately cranks the snark and spiciness up about ten notches.
The surprise comes with Gigi. She only became friends with Hollis after Hollis’s husband died, and they’ve never actually met in person. Some of Hollis’s friends — and Caroline — think inviting her is a terrible idea.
I don’t think it’s that weird. I’ve never met my Button Guys business partner in person after seven years, but I feel like I’ve known him for a lifetime.
But the difference here is that Gigi has a secret that’s going to shock the hell out of you at the end. And it’s one of the many reasons this show hooked me in.
OnlyFans, Exes, and the “Gigi” Grenade
Caroline eventually changes her mind and shows up, adding another layer of family drama. But would you really expect a weekend full of women carrying this much baggage to go smoothly?
There’s also plenty of funny stuff mixed in with the heavier material.
On the ferry to Nantucket, Brooke meets a friend who’s simultaneously jealous and hurt that Brooke is going to hang out with Hollis. During their conversation, the woman proudly talks about how well her daughter is doing in college.
And on OnlyFans.
It still makes me laugh.
Those lighter moments keep the show from sinking under Hollis’s grief, while the women slowly start learning things about one another they didn’t know.
Caroline, for example, discovers that the guy who drove Tatum to Hollis’s house was Hollis’s first love. Ewww. At least that’s basically Caroline’s reaction.
His name is Jack (Timothy Olyphant), and I can’t imagine we’ve seen the last of him. I also suspect Tatum knew exactly what she was doing when she had Jack drive her there. I can’t wait to see where that particular grenade lands.
The Verdict
As cheesy as The Five Star Weekend can be — especially at the beginning — I couldn’t stop watching.
As the PTC saying goes, this show’s got Technicolor Urgency.
It’s bright. Things happen. Characters have personalities. Conversations actually lead somewhere. Even when the story slows down for the emotional stuff, it doesn’t get stuck in the River of Molasses.
The series is based on a novel by Elin Hilderbrand, which I shouldn’t have to tell you I didn’t read. I still stand by my ground that sometimes you’re better off watching an adaptation without reading the book first. Then you’re not spending the entire time nitpicking everything they changed. At least I know that’s what I’d do.
It was hard to resist watching the whole thing in one sitting, but I’ll most definitely be digging deeper into these ladies and their Five Star Weekend.
And One Peacock-Sized Complaint
Peacock is a premium service that I luckily get free with my internet service, and it’s still overloaded with commercials.
Not Hulu-level obnoxious, but come on.
I know I constantly defend commercials on FAST TV, but FAST IS FREE. That’s the deal. Show me some commercials and give me television for nothing. Fine.
Paid streaming is different. Some of those commercial breaks can run several minutes, multiple times during a single episode, for a service you’re already paying for. And then they want you to pay even more to make the commercials disappear? F*ck off.
Rant over.
🔥 Our Verdict: WATCHABLE. The Five Star Weekend is bright, breezy, funny and hiding plenty of mess underneath all that Nantucket perfection. It gave me women I already want to spend more time with, secrets I need answers to and one hell of a reason to hit “Next Episode.”
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